Sharemarket experts say the share portfolios of small investors are likely to have become ''unbalanced'' because of the big run-up in the share prices of the high-dividend paying companies.

As interest rates have fallen, investors have been seeking out the higher-income paying shares, such as the big banks, real-estate trusts, consumer staples and Telstra.

In the past year, these high-yielding shares have performed very strongly. They represent about 60 per cent of the Australian sharemarket, NAB Private Wealth investment strategist Nick Ryder says.

''With many income investors already overweight, these sectors … will have only grown without portfolio rebalancing,'' he says.

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Investors will already hold many of the higher-dividend paying stocks, he says. And the danger of that is ''you reduce your diversification and tend to become overweight, or have a higher portfolio weighting to those sectors that are potentially very expensive because their share prices have risen strongly.''

May was the first month since September 2012 in which resources outperformed industrials and financials. This has occurred only three times in the past 18 months.

''This is not to say we believe this is a trend that will necessarily continue, but we do flag that there is reduced potential for yield stocks to continue to outperform at the same level,'' Ryder says.

''People do tend to be momentum investors - buying things that are doing well and selling things that have fallen - and we try to discourage that mentality to actually have a counter-cyclical view, to buy things that have fallen and to sell things that have run hard.

''As economic conditions improve and interest rates rise, a lot of those yield stocks could be sold off quite hard and it is the growth stocks that people will seek out.''

Lincoln Indicators chief executive Elio D'Amato says, ''Dividend stocks, which are traditionally the cardigan-wearing businesses, are the new black.'' Investors want yield at almost any cost, he says. While some of these shares are overvalued, which stocks to hold will ultimately depend on the investor's objectives.

''If you rely on income to fund a certain lifestyle, then, whether you like it or not, you are going to be overweight in the banks and Telstra,'' D'Amato says.

''But, if the investor is seeking capital appreciation, there is a strong argument that a lot of those income stocks are overvalued. They have run too hard and the chase for yield has meant that their prices have become too high and, therefore, rebalancing is a very prudent strategy,'' he says.

D'Amato's favoured ''growth'' stocks include blood-products maker CSL. He also likes Ramsay Health Care, which is the only listed hospital owner and is expanding overseas.

Michael Heffernan, a senior client adviser and economist at Lonsec sharebrokers, says the best approach to rebalancing is on a share-by-share basis.

''I think there are other ways that you can approach your goals of maximising your capital and getting good income along the way, rather than saying, 'I have got to have a health or mining stock,''' he says.

Heffernan says if a share price drops significantly and by more than the market, he will discuss with the investor whether it is time to sell. ''That is the fail-safe approach to what some people may call overweight in a particular sector,'' he says.

Heffernan's clients tend to hold the big banks, but these ''defensive'' stocks have done well. ''Give me a defensive [stock] any time that goes up 30 per cent in a year and gives a 7 per cent dividend,'' he says.